MY MOM WAS the first person awake. As she stepped out of her room, still tying the fluffy red robe she’d worn my entire life, she froze. Her face was a glowing mask of awe and pride as she stared at me. She slowly walked closer as if afraid I would suddenly vanish. I’d given up on television around five in the morning and switched to staring blankly out the window, my thoughts in such a tangle I couldn’t recall them the moment I was summoned out of them.
I felt like I’d had a body transplant, that this couldn’t possibly be me. My nails were still blue from the polish Evelyn had used on them. The cut on my knee I got when I fell out of the cherry tree when I was ten was still there. So was the small, rounded line where Sariah smashed me in the head with a crochet mallet. She claimed it was an accident, but I remain unconvinced. So it was definitely the same body, it just seemed like eight years had passed in a single night.
I stood, feeling odd in my own skin. My mother rushed the rest of the way towards me and hugged me tight. My lungs felt a little compressed from how tight she squeezed, holding on for a very long time. When she pulled back, I saw the tears on her cheeks. Placing her hand on my chin, she smiled. “You’re beautiful, Amelia.” With her arm around my shoulders, she led me into the kitchen. She began to make a big breakfast, but she talked to me the whole time. “I’m so sorry I didn’t prepare you more for that, Amelia.” Her head disappeared into the pot cupboard, and her voice came out muffled. “I had planned to spend the winter teaching you everything you needed to know to be ready. Usually there are lots of signs before it comes,” she said as she emerged, cast iron skillet in hand, “but I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. Have you?”
I thought about it, biting an oddly full lip. “Well,” I stopped, shocked by the sound of my own voice, slightly throaty and husky. “I felt ill all week. I was running a hundred and six degree temperature the other night.” I thought harder. “No weird plant behavior. And all the things I ate were normal. Well, normal for me, anyway,” I said, thinking of the peanut butter and banana sandwiches.
“Oh, Lia, I should have phrased that better. The cravings aren’t just food, but for things that go against your personality. Before my change, I craved hard rock even though I’m a country girl at heart. If I’d had more time, I would have warned you the signs were subtle.”
I thought about how I had been craving attention on Halloween, and how Nate had pulled me out and brought me home. He’d looked so worried. And then I remembered the first day of school, and my first real exposure to this strange new life. Could Nathanial have started this by electrocuting me?
“But what set it off? I haven’t been near any natural disasters.”
“I don’t know, baby. I wish I did.”
I bit my lip, afraid to meet her eyes. “Could accidental exposure to another Gaia’s power do it?” I asked, looking up through my now dark lashes.
“I don’t think so. Why do you ask?”
With a sigh, I told her about the first day of school, knowing it would lead to more discussion I didn’t want to have. But she surprised me when she latched onto something I didn’t expect. “He said he didn’t know you were so close?” she asked, her eyes narrowing and her head cocking thoughtfully. “Well then he definitely didn’t cause it. Did you go anywhere unusual this summer?”
“I don’t think so, just the normal things I do during the summer.”
“Hmm. Well, it’s a problem for another day. Today my little girl is all grown up, and she is stunning!” Mom placed her hand on my cheek and smiled radiantly.
I blushed, and she returned to cooking. I was saved more gushing by the emergence of Xander, shuffling to the coffee pot in, I kid you not, full length fleece footy pajamas—the kind with the plastic covered feet. He looked like an overgrown toddler. Making a beeline for the coffee, he poured a cup and turned towards the counter before he noticed me. “Hubba, hubba, Amelia!” he said, waggling his eyebrows. I flushed as he looked at Mom with a knowing look. “Dad out polishing the guns, preparing for the zombie hoard of hormonal teenagers I’m sure are already heading this way?”
Mom snorted. “Don’t even joke about it, or I’ll lock all three of you into a barrel!”
Xander grinned and sat next to me, silently nudging me with his shoulder and smiling. I smiled back and leaned my head into him for the briefest moment, grateful for his humor and his strength.
My father and Sariah had more to add when they joined us, both gushing over my new looks. We ate breakfast as family, lingering long after the last crumbs were gone. I couldn’t remember us doing anything of the sort for a very long time. Afterward, I allowed myself to be drug to the mall with my mom and Sariah. They spent the day playing dress up with me, but I was distracted by a new awareness of the fabrics. Sariah kept trying, but everything she picked up felt harsh and scratchy to me. Everything my mom found was fine, and I would grudgingly try them on for her. Finally, I asked her what was going on, why I was having so much trouble with the materials.
“It’s the downside of being Gaia, Lia. If it’s not natural, you won’t be able to tolerate it. Synthetic fibers will make you itch, non-organic food won’t sit in your stomach, and any place without plants and living earth will feel like a prison. You will learn to deal with it, if you want to live among humans.” She shrugged, then turned back to the clothes racks on the hunt again.
I thought about the chemicals I could taste in the water last night. Mom started buying organic before it was cool. It always seemed to me that she had a little hippy in her, but now I understood the real reason. We had a large vegetable garden that she carefully collected seeds for each fall. Now I realized that it was so the plants weren’t genetically engineered and our food wasn’t covered in pesticides and preservatives. I wondered how much trouble that must have been in the days before every grocery store had an organic food section. How ordinary the years past had been, surrounded by so much of the extraordinary, made me even more in awe of my mother.
Once Sariah caught on to the fabric issue, the shopping went very quickly. I felt guilty costing so much money, but mom confessed the same day Dad started my college fund, she started my post-metamorphosis shopping fund. As I was chased into one dressing room after another, I realized I liked the softer, more feminine look they were creating for me. I was even sort of enjoying the process—which was a good thing since I didn’t seem to have a choice. By the time we visited every clothes store in the mall, some of them twice, we had about twenty bags worth of clothes, and I thought we were done. I thought wrong.
I tried not to cringe as Sariah pulled me reluctantly into the shoe store. None of my old ones fit, Mom’s were too big and Sariah’s too small. An old pair of Mom’s flip flops worked for shopping, but it wasn’t a comfortable choice in Illinois in November. I have no idea how many different shoes were shoved on my feet in a whirlwind of leather and metal. By the time Sariah and Mom were done, I owned more shoes than I had owned in my entire life added together! I complained about the cost, the only logical argument I could come up with, but Mom explained we hadn’t come near the thousands of dollars she stashed away.
From the shoe store, I was taken to the hair salon, the first place we’d gone all day that I didn’t object to. I loved having people mess with my hair, and I didn’t think that had changed. I opened my mouth to tell the woman what I wanted, but Sariah clapped her hand over my mouth and told the stylist what to do. The woman looked at me doubtfully, but I just shrugged and nodded. In the end, my hair fell in layers to about the middle of my back with a thick swoop bang, delicately framing my new face. Overall I was impressed and glad I’d listened to my sister.
The final stop was the organic makeup store Mom was very fond of. Sariah was a whirlwind of motion picking out creams, powders, and pencils for me. I looked at all the stuff she had in the basket and figured there was no way I was ever going to figure out how to use all this stuff. A clerk came and applied them in a frenzy of motion I couldn’t really follow. She handed
me a mirror, and my unfamiliar face was more colorful, if nothing else. I still wasn’t used to what I saw in the mirror, so this little tweak made little difference to me.
As we were walking out of the store, my mom came to a sudden stop. I glanced back and saw the alarm on her face. Turning back toward the door, I saw the reason as Evelyn walked in with her mother, Monica. Mom needn’t have though, because Sariah smoothly pushed me into the nearby photo booth. As the screen in front of us directed us through the process, I strained to overhear Mom and the Matthews talking.
“Hello, Nancy. Fancy meeting you here of all places! What are you and your girls up to today?” Monica asked in that saccharine voice of hers. It was never anything I could put my finger on, but there was something seriously off about her. She’s always been very intense, and at times it scared me, but as my best friend’s mother I learned to love her as she was. However, something seemed different about her now.
“Hello, Monica. Yeah, we had to get Amelia some new clothes. You know how girls are at this age, growing like a weed!” I could hear the strain in Mom’s laugh, and I peeked out the curtain. Through the crack, my eye met one of Evelyn’s, which widened. I pressed myself against the back of the booth, hiding my face behind Sariah. I didn’t think she really hid me from view, though, considering I was about half a head taller than her now.
There were the normal niceties as they said goodbye. Mom turned to watch their departing backs before motioning us out of the booth. Sariah climbed out gracefully, and I followed awkwardly. We went to collect our pictures, but the printer was empty.
“Huh,” she said with a shrug. “Wonder if the printer’s broke.”
I eyed after Evelyn and her mother and had my doubts.
Natural Selection Page 14